


To the Last Cry

by Mia_Zeklos



Series: Steven Moffat Appreciation Week [1]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2014-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-25 00:17:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2601602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mia_Zeklos/pseuds/Mia_Zeklos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor gets an unexpected guest. Even though, remembering all that he'd lived through when it came to her, he should have seen it coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To the Last Cry

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the first day of the Steven Moffat Appreciation Week - Favourite character arc/development. I think it's clear that I chose River; I tried to compare the way she was when the Doctor last saw her to who she was just after her regeneration.
> 
> I'm not really sure if I managed to get Twelve right - it's a first time for me to write him - so any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

_You are like nobody since I love you_

_Let me spread you out among yellow garlands_

_Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?_

_Oh let me remember you how you were before you existed_

There was a faint crack and then the smell of ozone filled the air, disturbing the calm timelessness of the TARDIS. The Doctor, formerly engrossed in his study, looked up sharply.

It hadn’t happened in years, he realized. Back on Trenzalore, he’d seen her sometimes – a hallucination, he supposed, a way for his mind to deal with everything that happened around him – but it had been an eternity since he’d last heard this and since he’d felt the slight shift in the TARDIS’s flow through the Time Vortex when the chronon energy filled the air around the console.

The Doctor didn’t move from his chair by the desk beneath the control room and held his breath. He couldn’t be sure, of course; he could hope, but he couldn’t be sure. It could be anyone, after all, so he kept on listening.

There was the clicking of heels and then movement in his library upstairs. The intruder took a book off the shelf and the rustling of pages followed, then the hells again, this time echoing as she made her way down the stairs.

And there she was. Dressed in a knee-length black dress that flared from the waist down, her fingers hovering – unsure still, he noticed, early days for her – over a Time Ring. She was holding a blue journal in her free hand – new, almost unaffected by him yet, just like her.

And he'd hoped, even if just for a moment. Some ridiculous, irrational hope that perhaps, she'd found a way and had then found him. There was no argument, though, not when he took a good look at her. She wasn't even properly River yet; Melody was still hiding in her eyes with that small, menacing gleam that always sent shivers fown his spine.

They watched each other silently for several moments before the Doctor finally managed to get out a, “Hello.”

River beamed at him all of a sudden and the smile lit up her face and woke up the suns in her eyes. “Hello!” Her expression became tentative. “This might sound a bit weird. Do you know who I am?”

The Doctor only nodded. There wasn’t really anything he felt capable of saying and River’s smile only got bigger, her expression – even more calculating.

“Oh, so you’re from the future, then,” she said as she neared him. He didn’t move and let her trail her fingers down his cheek and over his hair, finding the strength to not close his eyes at her touch, as tempting as it was.

Not as tempting as her eyes, though. That colour between green and blue that had always made him marvel at the millions of different shades that chased one another in her irises, only made more prominent by the twinkle in her eyes.

She was young; it was glaringly obvious. So young that she didn’t recognise any face but the last one yet; miles away from the woman that he’d come to know and love one day. The last time he’d seen her in his tomb, she’d looked just the same – the face of a Time Lady didn’t really change through the years – but her eyes had been so tired of her exile in the database that his need to help her had been almost painful.

This River here was nothing like that. She was alive and breathing, right in front of him and he tried to touch her half out of habit and half because he needed to, but she danced out of his reach, laughter ringing around the room and chasing the shadows away. “Oh, you know me well, don’t you? Keep that thought for a while; I’m here for research.”

The Doctor frowned and finally found the will to speak. “Research?”

"I'm still trying to find my way around," River nodded and wrote something down in her notebook. "No peeking!" she admonished when he tried to look past her fingers. "You rules. You can't touch this."

The Doctor huffed. "I've already lived through all of it. I'm sure I can manage."

"Not through all of it," River replied, distracted, as she fiddled with her Time Ring. "There are things-"

"What?" He dared her, but she didn't pay him much attention. "No, don't do that. Just don't."

"Do what?" It was her turn to be confused - and she really was confused this time, he could tell. It wasn't only the act he was used to from her.

"You don't even know me yet, you're just hopping about." And if there was a bit of gloating in that sentence, then he was not to be judged because of it. He'd lived through enough of her acting like she knew his life story bit by bit. "You can't pull the 'I know everything' trick."

"Not everything," she conceded, "but still more than you."

And, as he looked from above, still having a bit of advantage in height department despite those ridiculous shoes, he saw her mark something with an 'x' like she was ticking out purchases on her grocery list.

That was it, he realised. She'd told him that while she'd been in Luna she'd hopped about his timeline (with a Time Ring she'd nicked from his TARDIS, none the less, but the time to mention this had both passed and hadn't come yet) so she could get to know him better; see him the way he saw her. On his past regenerations she'd often used tricks to erase their memories, he knew, but this time, it wasn't necessary.

He remembered how it had been before, in his old body; how she had felt in his arms. It had been amazing, better than anything else and he wasn't sure that he'd appreciate it now. Six hundred years without human touch had made him a bit immune to its power and yet, when she reached for him and stood on her toes to give him a kiss, he not only allowed it, but even hesitantly curled his arms around her waist.

She had seemed so strong before, when he hadn't known her. Unbreakable and bright and powerful; dancing through the Universe because she owned it with every breath she took. Now she felt fragile in his arms; small and delicate like an ice figure under the first rays of the spring. He was almost afraid that he'd break her.

"Thank you," she said with the same old big smile and the same new light in her eyes, and started twisting the ring about once more, setting new coordinates. "Don't worry, I'll be back in two ticks." The Doctor didn't say anything, but had a sneaking suspicion that his face had lost its neutral expression. To her, it was one visit of many.

To him, it was a blossoming hope he couldn't allow to himself to keep.


End file.
